The Tillers: Money Matters, and Re-Stealing is OK

I’ve done every daily for The Tillers more times than I can even think about at this point.

For the most part, they’re some of the more fun quests, if only because a) they’re usually easy, and/or b) The Tillers is one of the more enjoyable factions out there. Well, everything is, compared to, say, the Shado’pan.

Anyway, while cultivating my relationships with the faction and its members (see what I did there? Yes, I have a very, very dry sense of humor sometimes…), I’ve come up with a couple of personal truths regarding certain quests. Today I want to look at a couple of them.

Money Matters

Gina Mudclaw is a very nice, very pretty, and apparently very rich, little lady who works as a merchant at Halfhill. Along your journey, she gives quests, accepts gifts, and offers some fun little items as you gain Tillers reputation.

One of the Tillers dailies is called Money Matters. For this quest, Gina asks you to collect payments from four NPCs who are presumably delinquent on their accounts. In the quest text, she laments that the one thing she dislikes about working the market is collecting debts, which is completely understandable, as asking people to pay what they owe can naturally be uncomfortable.

So I accept the quest, and talk to the four NPCs. One of three things usually happens when I ask them for their payments:

1) They pay without a second thought, usually with a comment about how good it is to honor one’s debts.

2) They don’t have the money, and they don’t want to get in trouble with Gina, me, or, in some cases, with their mothers. This causes them great consternation. They may say something like, “I’m going to get into big trouble. Could you pay my debt for me?” or “I just don’t have any money right now.”

3) They don’t want to pay the money.

If the customer gives me their payment, then it’s done. I move on to the next NPC. However, of the customer can’t or won’t pay, I have two options: I can threaten them with violence (aka shaking them down), or I can offer to pay their debt for them this time.

The debt is always one gold, so it could be easy to just pay their debt for them and move on peacefully. Then again, there is no tangible relationship reputation with these particular NPCs, so it would also be simple to just shake down any non-payers. There is no real moral dilemma like there would be if Blizzard had made these things matter.

However, I like to make the moral choice anyway.

For example, if Innkeeper Lei Lan is having trouble keeping her inn afloat financially, which happens from time to time, she’ll say so. In that case, I’ll offer to pay her debt for her. She is an honest woman, by all indications, and has real remorse and fear for her situation. Plus, her debt is, as I mentioned, mere pocket change for me. So I will pay it every time in that situation.

Similarly, Lolo Lio isn’t the best bear when it comes to money, obviously…

Lolo Lio, spending more than he should. Silly bear!

His ma is not going to be happy when she gets a hold of this news. Poor dude. So I pay it for him.

Anyway, to the moral point of this tale: since the debt is always one gold, why not always just pay it? Or why not always just shake them down, since there is no moral consequence?

Well, call it a smidge of RP with a dose of me being the dope who follows his heart in this in-game situation. In the case where someone is in trouble either because of hard times or poor money management, I’m happy to help these pandas out.

However, when it comes to option three, things change as the level of arrogance and downright misogyny gets ratcheted up a bit.

Here’s Spicemaster Jin Jao on a day where his head resides firmly up his ass:

Spicemaster Jin Jao, about to get his spices shoved “where the sun don’t shine.”

As you can see, he’s THISCLOSE to getting the piss beaten out of him by a heavily-armed and -armored, pissed off dude. Yes I’ve watched The Sopranos way too much, and I’m ready to do this!

Fortunately, my little threat sets him straight, and he hurriedly passes over his payment – although not without passing off some bulls**t advice about it not being wise to “raise your fists in town.” As Paulie Walnuts would say, “Get the f**k outta heeah!” Hypocrite.

You don’t always get the same response, but if they don’t show respect and “honor (your) debts” as Jin Jao says on days that he’s lucid and decides not to mess with the wrong person (me), I threaten to give them what’s coming to them. Every time.

So here’s my personal moral guideline on how to handle the situations in this quest: “Don’t be a dick, (insert NPC name).” If you make your payment, we’re golden. If you’re having some problems, come talk to me, and we’ll work something out. If you try to pull any funny business, though, I’ll get serious about it, and quickly.

This quest involves re-stealing stolen vegetables from the Kunzen hozen. The vegetables are often stacked near huts and are guarded by any assortment of hozen.

Generally, the idea is to kill the hozen, re-steal the vegetables, and go turn your quest in. However, as is often the case in quests like these, others have the same objective.

One thing I’ve noticed is that people like to be disrespectful of other players’ areas. By this, I mean that if you’re killing five Kunzen Rockflingers and a Kunzen Ravager in order to get the four stolen vegetables that they’re guarding, some other player will swoop down and take them while you’re in combat. This is not a new phenomenon, of course.

However, I like doing these on my hunter and warrior*. Mushan will land right in the middle of the group, case Misdirection, Multishot to Phobos the Turtle, and happily pick up my vegetables while Phobos holds down the fort.

Keeping the Ravager busy while recovering some vegetables. Hunters. :D

So when some tauren (not pictured – I’m not quick enough with my screenshots…) comes down, like one did today, and starts trying to steal my stolen vegetables, I’m all “Ook you, Dooker!” as they’re surprised to find that those four vegetables were only really zero or one, because the rest are in my bag… in combat. I’m not some doormat just because you’re Horde and I’m Alliance… I saw you fly down to try to pick them in druid flight form, get attacked, and then fly away like a wuss, then try to pick them up while I did your dirty work for you, you coward!

^_^

– – –

Amid the grind of dailies at level 90, there are places in the game where you can find joy and humor during your chores. These are just two of the places that I find such things.

Hope you’re still having fun!

– – –

*The warrior can fear. :)

Thanks for reading this post by Mushan at Mushan, Etc. Comments are welcome!

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4 Comments on “The Tillers: Money Matters, and Re-Stealing is OK”

The Boyfriend and I have started to help other players when we see them getting beat down by mobs – especially when we see players swipe their veggies. I bubble them and heal them back up, he taunts the mobs off of them so they have a chance to pick the veggies up. Then we throw our priest/pally buffs on them and fly into the sunset. Doing this is actually like a mini-game in and of itself. :O

Spicemaster Jin doesn’t do anything useful for anybody anyways, so if he gets a little beat up, who cares?

I always, always, always threaten Spicemaster Jin when he doesn’t pay up, and I’m somewhat disappointed when he does, because then I can’t pretend to kick his panda ass.

I always have this dream where Thermalix punches him in the family jewels (goblins are too short to use the knee), then, when he’s down to her level, she can easily grab the front of his shirt and tell him (in the Nicest Possible Voice, of course) to say that comment about Gina again.

Alternately, I wish I could sic my worg on him. My puppy has very, very long teeth.